Crack down on sexual trafficking

The charges against Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire long accused of molesting minor girls, should be the wake-up call we need in America to encourage all states, including Illinois, to follow the lead of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who recently signed into law an anti-human trafficking bill.

The new law requires educating employees of massage parlors, hotels and adult theaters to recognize the red flags and evidence associated with human trafficking and calls for these employees to report any suspicious activity to the confidential National Human Trafficking Hotline (1-888373-7888). Even more significant, those convicted of soliciting prostitution in Florida will be subject to steep fines and included in a new Prostitution Public Database. Fines will be used to help survivors of this crime.

Education of law enforcement personnel is also a big component of the law to aid in enforcement efforts and help them to understand that sex trafficking is not a choice. Traffickers often seek to lure minors who are homeless or have run away from abuse at home, as they are easier to groom. Traffickers build trusting and caring relationships with the exploited and eventually force them into selling their bodies for sex, using force, fraud, coercion, violence and threats to control them. Sex trafficking is among the fastest-growing crimes in our nation. It destroys lives everywhere.

We must realize that each victim is someone’s child, sibling or parent. This is happening in our own backyard, and we need a united effort to put resources toward helping these victims and to impose stiff punishment on sex traffickers, who are destroying lives. A United Nations report released in January 2019 shows that human trafficking at the national and international level has taken on “horrific dimensions.” Human trafficking is a local, American epidemic target ing our own children. The time to take action is now.

— Elizabeth Melendez Fisher, co-founder and president/CEO, Selah Way Foundation/Selah Freedom, Chicago

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